Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication, also known as Machine-Type Communication (MTC) or Internet of Things (IoT) communication, enables the establishment of communications between two or more machines or devices, as well as between machines or devices and humans. Such communications include, but are not limited to, the exchange of data (including measurement data), signaling, configuration information, etc. The machines involved in such communications may vary in size, and are typically used for a wide variety of applications, e.g., sensing environmental conditions (e.g., temperature reading), taking meter measurements (e.g., electricity usage), finding faults and/or errors (e.g., bridge fault detection), etc. In many applications, the machines involved in this type of communication are active infrequently but over a consecutive duration, e.g., approximately 200 ms every 2 seconds, approximately 500 ms every 60 minutes, etc. As such, these machines typically have low/intermittent power consumption, and many therefore be powered by a single AA battery for years, e.g., up to 10 years.
Given that these machines are often battery powered, minimizing the power consumption is of utmost importance. Because the power requirements of a single one of these devices depends heavily on the current wireless environment and the amount of data that needs to be transmitted, which is often variable, it is challenging to pre-configure a single device such that the lowest possible power consumption is achievable for all scenarios. Thus, there remains a need for improved solutions associated with M2M communications.